Having no plans will be my downfall or my triumph

I had few plans this weekend, just my 8-year-old’s volleyball game and and an author event at a local book store. It doesn’t sound like much, but I’m kind of a one-activity-per-day gal. The events were bookends to the day though – one in the morning and one in the evening – yet I still ended up running around like crazy in between, showing up to the author event with an outfit I hated and a head of frizzy hair I tried to salvage from the day’s messy bun.

Today though, we really had no plans. So I made mental plans to repeat last week’s good juju and go for a run and paint in between rotating loads of laundry.

I did none of those things because a) I spent the entire first part of the day in bed or on the couch, ibuprofened up and slathered in peppermint oil, with an almost-migraine, and b) mental plans aren’t really plans. Real plans are plans.

And then I was feeling a little better, but the sun came out and it became an insanely pretty day here, so we went to the park, and then we had to go to the grocery store for toilet paper (because in a house with four females, that is indeed a dire need) and ended up getting a trunk-load of groceries, then my 10-year-old dropped a bottle of ranch dressing my husband was really looking forward to trying on the kitchen floor – not all that important, but I feel like it’s important for people to really get a feel for the chaos in my house – THEN there was dinner/showers/chores and then I maybe could have gotten my painting stuff out, but honestly I got sucked into the second half of the book Practical Magic (I’d already read the first half; I didn’t just randomly get pulled into the second half, although it’s definitely picking up the pace), then before I knew it, it was time for the kids to go to bed AND THEN I had laundry to fold and Netflix to watch.

That’s quite a lot of stuff for a one-activity-per-day gal and a weekend with no plans. I didn’t do what I thought I was going to do today, but I also didn’t plan on spending over half the day on the couch with my beloved family members gawking at me and saying, “You don’t look so good, Mom.” I didn’t plan on going to the park, but I don’t regret it because my kids are still young enough to love it but old enough that I don’t have to stalk them (bless you, toddler parents). And I don’t regret the grocery store because I am Team Toilet Paper all the way.

I love having no plans. It feels so free. Anything can happen. What I’ve learned is that anything will happen. Any painting or creating I want to do isn’t going to happen on its own, no matter how good my intentions. I have to proactively choose it. It’s just that today I chose the park and the toilet paper and the book, and I wouldn’t really say I chose the laundry, but my therapist would totally say, “You chose the laundry.”

(If it helps any, I also chose to start watching Schitt’s Creek while folding the laundry, and that’s a good choice, right?)